[NextGenderation]
http://www.sall.ex.ac.uk/content/view/1562/3/
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Queer in Europe
A 3-Day International Research Symposium
to be held at:
The Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of
Sexuality and Gender in
Europe
University of Exeter, UK
September 13-15, 2008.
Call for Papers
Queer theory as an academic discourse emerged in
the1980s in the
Anglo-American
world in the wake of post-structuralist currents
coming from
continental
Europe, such as Foucaldian discourse analysis and
Derridean
deconstruction. It
constituted both a reaction against
identity-politics-based
perspectives, such
as feminism and gay and lesbian studies on the one
hand, and a
development,
modification and expansion of them on the other.
(Indeed, in some
quarters, it
is now routinely used as a synonym for them.) Queer
historicizes and
relativizes the disciplinary assertions
(psychological, medical) about
the
meanings of gender and sexualities. However, as well
as issuing from
the
academy, queer also emerged at grass-roots level as a
strategy of
contestation
in response to homophobic political rhetoric
surrounding the AIDS
crisis of the
1980s. (The ironic recuperation of the term queer' by
Queer Nation,
for
example, is central to the subverting force that queer
discourse
carries.) The
importance of this link between high theory' and
political activism,
and
the intermeshing of European and American influences
in creating queer,
are only
occasionally acknowledged or interrogated in the
numerous existing
published
studies of queer. All too often, queer is treated at a
national level
as a
national phenomenon, shorn of its crucial global
dimension. Theorists
are
accused of abstraction, and activists of a lack of
understanding. And
the
importance of queer both as an artistic practice and
as a hermeneutic
tool is
often underplayed or ignored. Moreover, just as
Moldavia famously
exists in the
American imagination as a land of unreality and
fantasy, so mental maps
of
Europe are often distorted and incomplete.
The aim of this conference, organized in conjunction
with a network bid
and a
consciousness raising book project, is to address
these issues by
bringing
together scholars and activists from a wide variety of
backgrounds to
discuss
the following broad questions:
1). How are paradigms of same sex love and other
dissident sexualities
experienced in different national cultures, discourses
and political
arenas?
2). How is the body of work known as Queer Theory
disseminated and
received in
Europe, and how do the paradigms identified in (1)
affect this?
3). How do the factors identified in (1) and (2)
affect the production
and
reception of cultural artefacts (literature, film &
television, drama
and
cabaret, the visual arts, popular music etc.)?
4). How do the factors identified in (1), (2) and (3)
impinge on and
help to set
the agenda for future scholarship and activism in this
field?
What we are hoping for at this stage are expressions
of interest from
as wide a
spectrum of potential participants as possible,
including artists and
practitioners as well as theorists and activists. It
is envisaged that,
alongside traditional academic papers, there will be
workshops and
breakout
groups, sessions run by activists and artists, poster
sessions and
performances, a round table discussion and a
publication workshop. A
discussion
forum will also be in place for those who are unable
to attend the
conference in
person. A volume of conference proceedings, designed
to reflect the
whole
spectrum of activities, will be submitted to Ashgate's
Queer
Interventions' series, with anticipated publication in
2009.
Expressions of interest, accompanied where appropriate
by paper titles
and short
proposals (no more than 200 words) should be addressed
to either Lisa
Downing
l.m.downing@??? email address is being
protected from spam
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Gillett
r.m.gillett@??? email address is being
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need Javascript enabled to view it by May 31st 2008.
--
'Some differences are playful; some are poles of world
historical
systems of domination. Epistemology is about knowing
the difference'.
Donna Haraway
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